Ekaterinburg Arena: FC Ural

The history of Ekaterinburg Arena is a genuinely fascinating one. There has been a sports stadium based on the land where the arena stands since the early 1900s, with the purpose of the various stadiums changing with the popularity of any given sport in Russia at the time. In 1900, for example, a velodrome was built there. It was replaced by an all-purpose regional stadium in 1928 and what was known as the Metallurg of the East in 1936. It became a football ground in 1957 but even that has undergone numerous changes over the years.

As for the club that plays its football there, FC Ural Yekaterinburg came into existence in 1930. They are not one of Russia’s more popular clubs nor one of the more successful ones, in spite of the fact that the city of Yekaterinburg is the fourth largest city in the entire country. Only Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk can beat the city’s population of a little under one and a half million. As is often the case with Russian stadiums, there is surprisingly scant information available about either the team or the stadium, so here is what we do know.

Ekaterinburg Arena Seating Plan & Where to Sit

At the time of writing the stadium is still being re-built, so it’s difficult to speak with any accuracy about how it will look when it’s finished. What we do know is that will have a capacity of over 40,000 and the plans suggest that it will take on a bowl design.

FC Ural Ticket Prices

FC Ural tend to charge somewhere between 100 Rubles and 300 Rubles, depending on where you’re hoping to sit and who it is that the team is playing against.

How To Get FC Ural Tickets

There is an official website but a quick look at it suggests that it’s not kept up to date very often. Instead you might want to call the ticket office on the phone or else drop in in person.

Getting To Ekaterinburg Arena

Train - It would take you over three days to get the train from London to Ekaterinburg, so you’ll probably want to give that a miss. Once your in the city, however, there is an excellent tram system in place. There are tram stops within walking distance of the stadium where tram numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 18, 21, 23 and 26 all stop.

Bus - The most reliable way to get around the city is via bus, with the likes of bus numbers 2, 3, 7, 17, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 48. 61 and 64 calling close enough to the arena to mean you can walk there easily enough.

Car - The E22 circles the city and the stadium sits pretty much in between ul. Moskovskaya and ul. Tokarey.

By Air - Ten miles South-East of the city centre is Koltsovo International Airport, which is where you’ll fly into pretty much wherever you’re coming from.

Taxi - If you got a taxi from the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land, which is close to the centre of the city, out to the stadium it would cost you about 300 Rubles and take around ten minutes to complete its journey.

Parking Near Ekaterinburg Arena

There is a parking area close to the ground with room for over 3000 cars.

Ekaterinburg Arena Hotels

The Art Hotel Leto is a small affair, but that just means that you’ll get some decent attention from the hoteliers. With just twelve rooms, this hotel in the centre of the city offers self-parking and free Wi-Fi. There’s also a continental breakfast included in the cost of your stay. Despite the size of the hotel there is a business centre in it and it’s only a short walk to the stadium. More details.

From the boutique to the big, this hotel has over one hundred rooms as well as a restaurant and bar. There’s also a nightclub on site, should you be a bit of a party animal. It’s not very far at all from the arena so you can take advantage of the free parking. There’s free Wi-Fi, as is the case with most hotels nowadays, which you can use when you’re in the hotel’s business centre. More details.

There are thirty guest rooms in the Eurohotel Central, so it sits neatly between the other two on our list. Unlike the others, though, it has both a fitness centre and an indoor swimming pool. There’s a business centre if you need to do some work, which will be assisted by the free Wi-Fi on offer. You get a continental breakfast as part of your stay and there’s also free parking for any of you that might be planning on driving. More details.

Pubs & Bars Near Ekaterinburg Arena

Rosy Jane Pub

The Rosy Jane Pub is a bar with an English theme close to the centre of the city. It’s where plenty of expats head to in order to watch live sport as there are a number of TV screens dotted around the place. You can experience live music in the venue from time to time and there is also a good menu offering tasty food.

Ben Hall Pub & Club & Restaurant

Another English themed pub, the Ben Hall is actually something of a multi-venue. As well as showing live sport they also host DJs and bands, so it’s the kind of place you’ll want to head to if you’re a bit of a party animal. They offer any number of different dishes that might whet your appetite, from European food to Mexican. Combine that with a decent drinks menu and you’ve got a lovely little venue indeed.

Doctor Scotch Pub

Doctor Scotch is something of an eclectic mix of a place, with both Irish and Scottish leanings. That comes out in both the food and drink on offer, with numerous different whiskeys appealing to the more discerning palate. This isn’t really a sports bar as such, though there are TVs around that you might be able to persuade the owners to put a match on if you’re particularly desperate.

Hospitality

FIFA has very specific rules about the stadiums it allows to host major tournaments, with one of them being that there has to be a decent hospitality area. Sufficed to say, then, that you can expect lounges, boxes and other places for the fat cats of football’s premier organisation to get themselves fed and watered.

Private Hire

There is, apparently, a plan to make the stadium sustainable in the long-term. Part of that will almost certainly include the ability to hire out sections of the ground for private use in order to reclaim some of the money spent on it.

Stadium Tours & Museum

It’s not possible to do a tour whilst the ground is under-construction, but there might be opportunities to tour it once it’s re-opened near the time of the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

About FC Ural

Despite being formed in 1930, there isn’t really a lot we can tell you about FC Ural. The club is based in the part of Russia that sits on the border of Europe and Asia. Consequently the club is a mixture of cultures and always has been. The club reached the final of the Russian Cup in 2017, doing so for the first time in their history. They lost 2-0 to Lokomotiv Moscow, but the achievement of even reaching the final in the first place was something nobody expected from them.

Ekaterinburg Arena History

If there’s not much we can tell you about the club then the opposite is true of the stadium. If anything, there’s too much to say. It opened at as a football ground in 1957 when it was known as Central Stadium. It became a public company in 2004 and two years later a decision was made to renovate it as it had fallen into a state of disrepair. As is so often the case with football grounds in Russia, the renovations were nowhere near as straightforward as they were supposed to be. Believe it or not, fire delayed the construction on five separate occasions.

When it re-opened there were 27,000 seats located in new stands and some were covered by a partial roof. The new pitch was also made to standards suitable for international football, all of which meant that it was selected as one of the host stadiums for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The problem was that it still didn’t actually meet the requirements laid out by FIFA. Rather than a gentle reconstruction, the stadium needed to be completely knocked down and re-built in order to be used to host World Cup matches. Having spent close to £80 million refurbishing it, another £350 million plus was spent getting it ready for the tournament.

Future Developments

The stadium will continue to be used by FC Ural after the World Cup, so it has been deliberately built in a manner that will allow it to be taken apart and turned into a smaller stadium with a capacity of about 33,000 after the tournament.